Mar 4, 2015 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Digital Pathology, Instruments & Equipment, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers could find opportunity to add value as providers learn to use big data to improve patient outcomes and lower costs
Early adopter accountable care organizations (ACOs) are establishing data warehouses. This is a first step in collecting and analyzing healthcare big data. The move toward integrated care makes big data critical to an ACO’s success. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers will want to follow the healthcare big data trend because laboratory test results will be a major component of that data.
The Goal of Healthcare Big Data
The goal for healthcare big data is twofold: 1) develop the ability to aggregate a vast amount of data from wide-ranging sources, and 2) use that data in real time to improve care and lower costs, a recent story published in Modern Healthcare (MH) reported. New performance-based reimbursement models mean that big data analytics will be essential for ACOs to succeed going forward. (more…)
Dec 3, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Laboratory Testing
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco revealed that the cost for a simple cholesterol test ranged from as little as $10 to as much as $10,169!
Clinical laboratories owned by hospitals and health systems should take note of a public study of hospital laboratory test prices that was conducted by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). It was published this summer and showed a remarkable range of prices for medical laboratory tests charged by California hospitals.
How about a charge of $10,169 for a routine blood cholesterol test? This was one finding a study discussed in the August 2014 issue of the British Medical Journal Open blog. The study was led by Renee Hsia, M.D.. She is an associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Policy at the UCSF Medical School. Hsia and her colleagues compared charges for 10 common clinical laboratory tests that were reported in 2011 by all non-federal California hospitals. (more…)
Dec 26, 2012 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
Clinical laboratories may see a reduction in the early-morning crowds of fasting patients who have come in for cholesterol testing
For the clinical laboratory testing industry, a new Canadian study suggesting that people may not need to fast before getting a cholesterol test could prove a boon for staffing and operations at patient service centers. That’s because fasting-patients crowd phlebotomy centers in the early morning hours to get their blood drawn so they can eat breakfast.
It is standard practice to require patients to fast before drawing blood specimens for a cholesterol test. However, based on a study involving 200,000 people, findings led researchers to conclude that a non-fasting lipid test would be a reasonable alternative for most people. (more…)
